| Book of the Month | ||
| Penguin Quick Guides - Common Errors in English. | | |
Publisher: Penguin.
Author: Paul Hancock
All Levels
The Penguin Quick Guides are for people who want to study English on the move. The books are small and square (4 inches by 4 inches - that is; 10cm by 10cm). They are designed so that you can carry them in a pocket or a bag, and they are laid out so that you can get some useful information after reading for just a few minutes or even seconds. So next time you are in a queue in the post office, or sitting in the bus, you could be improving your English!
There are a number of books in the series. Most of them are orange and white, and they all have the same style, since they are edited by the same people - Andy Hopkins and Jocelyn Potter. They are easy to read, and there are plenty of pictures, so the books are fun. They are quite cheap too (£3 in England if you click through amazon to the amazon.co.uk website), so if a book gets lost or wet it is not a complete disaster. Among the books in the series are Computer English Phrasal Verbs, and Descriptions in English -
All levels? Yes, because even people who are quite good at English often make basic mistakes - like taking about the "hairs" on their head, when English people use the uncountable noun "hair".
This book has 300 errors which it says are the most common. Every page has examples of some of the errors. Then there is an explanation of what an English person might understand from the error. Then you get the correct way to say or write what you wanted to express.
For example, "He was sick for three days" is not correct (though some English people also make this mistake). "To be sick" is usually used to mean the action of vomiting. If someone really was sick for three days, it would be very unpleasant. A better version is "He was ill for three days". Some of the mistakes have cartoon drawings to show what is wrong (though fortunately not this one!). Some of the drawings are quite amusing - for example to illustrate the mistake "There were very little people on the train" (which should be "There were very few people on the train"). Still, there are only 160 pages in the book, and some of the drawings take a whole page. Smaller drawings and more mistakes would be better.
The book is divided into sections; for example - Future, Beginning and End, Moving around. It might have been better if the mistakes were grouped by types of mistake - wrong word, wrong construction, wrong grammar and so on. But really, the organisation does not matter - you can open the book anywhere and start reading. You will quickly find something interesting.
The book was written by Paul Hancock - who describes himself as an English teacher and teacher trainer. It is always useful to read books written by people who have been teachers because they understand the practical things that students need.
Who is the book for? Anyone who uses English and wants to get it right.
Verdict - There are some things that can be improved, but really, Penguin have a good idea with this type of book. Don't use it in your normal study time - take the book with you and use it instead of wasting time on the train, on the bus, or in a queue.
Assessment 7/10